NHL wild card race heats up as regular season winds down

Never mind waiting for the playoffs to get underway for the NHL to get extra intense — the race to solidify a wild card bid has turned into must-see hockey. In a bizarre tidal change in which the top teams in each division have gone into snooze mode over the last week, the wild card competition has turned into a neck-and-neck affair.

The Eastern Conference has become a bit of a head-scratcher, with the top dogs, the Capitals and Rangers, showing rust in the Metropolitan and the Bruins losing five straight in the Atlantic. All the while, the race has been bubbling just below them in the standings, with the Islanders trying to hold the top wild card spot and the Flyers making their case for the second wild card slot.

Philadelphia pulled out a 4-2 victory Thursday against the Colorado Avalanche — more on Colorado's wild card push later — to keep it tangoing with a Detroit Red Wings team that has been fighting not to unravel all season. Now, Philly and Detroit are tied for points and have equally difficult schedules down the last leg of the season. In fact, as Rob Vollman of NHL.com points out, the Flyers and Red Wings are actually very similar squads:

Each team has gotten solid goaltending. The Flyers have a .934 save percentage in even-strength situations, No. 2 in the NHL behind the New York Rangers (.936), and slightly ahead of the Red Wings (.930), who are in a five-way tie for eighth. 

On the penalty kill, they equally are average. The Flyers rank No. 15 in the NHL by allowing 98.0 shot attempts per 60 minutes while shorthanded, just ahead of the Red Wings, who are No. 17 with 99.1. 

The coaching staffs equally are inexperienced relative to the rest of the League. Each has a first-year NHL coach, Jeff Blashill in Detroit and Dave Hakstol in Philadelphia, and began this season ranked No. 29 and No. 30 in the NHL in terms of the fewest games of head coaching experience at any level on staff.

Vollman also points out that both teams can make the postseason if the Bruins, who are 3-5-2 in their last 10 and were completely swept on the road, fall spectacularly to pieces in these last couple of weeks. Of course, Boston could also turn things around and make for the April 6 fete between Philly and Detroit a battle to the death. Really, anything can happen in the race during the next two weeks.

That brings us to the race in the Western Conference, which has been equally as convoluted. In the top tier, the Blackhawks have continued their pre-playoffs skid in the Central while the Stars jump back and forth between letting poor goaltending cost them games. All while the Blues are plugging through despite having one of the most injury-riddled rosters this season.

And then there’s the Pacific, in which all three top-seeded teams — the Kings, Ducks and Sharks — didn’t notch a single win all week. (Actually, L.A. has lost three straight, but who knows if they Kings will manage to turn it on once playoffs get underway, like they have in seasons past.)

In wild card land, the Predators continue to notch points and solidify that first spot after going 6-2-2 over their last 10. Given their need to rally to a win over the Canucks on Thursday — not an easy feat for Nashville, apparently — it will be interesting to see how well the Preds maintain that slot with the bulk of Western Conference competition on their docket for the last weeks of the season, including two tilts with the Stars and the Sharks.

Just below the Preds in the standings, the Avalanche and Wild continue to trade turns holding on to that second spot. Colorado doesn’t have the odds in its favor with Nathan MacKinnon and Matt Duchene both sidelined with knee injuries and a heavy season-ending schedule, including two matchups a iece with the Preds and Blues. But that doesn’t leave the Wild without criticism, because even after winning four straight it can’t be ignored that Minnesota has been streaky over the course of the 2015-16 campaign.

This should make for one heck of a wild card battle on the 26th when the Wild face the Avs other at the Pepsi Center in Denver.